Happy Holidays From NYC

A fantasy tropical garden in the window at Bergdorf Goodman

Recently after dinner with friends TD and walked over 57th Street to Fifth Avenue. Trees covered with white lights glittered in front of 9 East 57th Street where I did some work this year at the Chanel corporate headquarters. Down near 5th Avenue we reached Bergdorf Goodman and their spectacular holiday windows which are particularly exciting at night.
Starting in the 57th Street windows, the theme was a circus. Next to a grey merry-go-round horse was a pale pink gown encrusted with jewels at the waist by CD Greene (click on photos to enlarge).

We turned the corner at Van Cleef & Arpel and continued on to the big Bergdorf Goodman windows along Fifth Avenue – the main event – where the theme is "Carnival of Animals."
"The Brass Menagerie" (also pictured at the top of this post) shows a chanteuse in a fantasy recording studio made of gold, brass and copper. The floor is layered with shiny pennies and the heroine wears a special dress created by Naeem Khan.

In a frosty setting of white and blue, polar bears, a moose, a seal, and more attend an arctic party in "Breaking the Ice." The hostess has donned a dress and one-of-a-kind cape by J. Mendel.

A figure in a white Alexander McQueen seashell dress floats through the sea in "Testing the Waters." The blue mosaic sea creatures swimming past sparkle with iridescence. This dreamy window was my favorite. Bergdorf Goodman told me that this window was ten months in the making and is the most labor-intensive window display in its history.

This small window pictures a pastel gem garden complete with dragon flies and spiders. Jewels by Iradj Moini.

In "Teacher's Pets" a life-size paper zebra and other black and white beasts gather around the teacher who is glamorously dressed in a black and white lace Marchesa gown.

And at the corner of 5th and 58th is "Artists and Models," a complex collection of wood and leather folk art animals assembled together with the sculptor dressed in a hat, beads and fur. It's a sophisticated scene but at the same time it evokes the innocence of a boy's toy chest.

The Bergdorf Goodman windows are a crowd-stopper along Fifth Avenue.

They really are a gift to the city and the people who visit it – a dazzling display of elegant imagination and creativity.
I am wishing you dear reader a dazzling holiday season of light and warmth. Enjoy your time with your loved ones.

Daphne Guinness Press Preview at F.I.T.

Daphne Guinness book cover, photo by Kevin Davies. Book available from Yale University Press in November.

I had the pleasure on Friday of attending the press preview for the Daphne Guinness exhibit which opened that day at the Fashion Institute of Technology at Seventh Avenue and 27th Street. You know Daphne Guinness – she is the fantastically creative style icon who inspires designers and brings their clothes to life, and also has forged her own signature look which is completely original. Daphne Guinness is an artist and her medium is clothes. This exhibition of her personal wardrobe was co-curated by Ms. Guinness and Valerie Steele, director and chief curator of The Museum at FIT, and includes 100 garments and accessories from the icon's personal collection, plus films, videos and images of and by her. It's up until January 7, 2012 and admission is free.

Daphne Guinness was born in 1967 to Jonathan Guinness, 3rd Baron Moyne, and his second wife Suzanne Lisney. Jonathan himself is the son of Bryan Guinness and...wait for it...Diana Mitford of the renowned Mitford sisters. The Guinness family of Ireland of course is known for its accomplishments in banking, politics, and dark beer brewing. Daphne married Spyros Niarchos, son of Greek shipping billionaire Stavros Niarchos who was famously the business rival of Aristotle Onassis. Daphne and Spyros had three children and were divorced in 1999.

Since then she has become renowned in the world of fashion for her personal style and knowledge of fashion. She was great friends with English talents Alexander McQueen and Isabella Blow, who both have tragically committed suicide. Her extremely romantic and imaginative style is a joy to see and I was looking forward to the exhibition at FIT.

When I am attending a press preview, I tend to rush in and circle around to try to take in the whole thing at once. Gradually though I slow down and the clothes begin to speak. The museum gallery space down in the basement level was designed by Ken Nintzel and divided into sections and rooms inspired by Daphne's New York City apartment so this show looks very different from exhibitions in the past like the Ralph Rucci one, where the gallery was open and expansive.

The show is organized by themes. The fantastic feather cape is part of the "Sparkle" group.

I loved these very precise jackets inspired by the tailoring of Savile Row in London.

A strict black tailored jacket is decorated with lace, a velvet ribbon and sparkling jewelry for a wonderful combination of structure and a touch of whimsy.

In contrast to that black tailoring are these white ensembles decorated with glittering stones. On the left is a silk chiffon dress by Alexander McQueen with rhinestones, and on the right is an ivory silk faile Chanel jacket with embroidered stone trim.

There were some futuristic, avant garde, sculptural silver dresses but my favorite piece was this narrow black sheath decorated with jewels around the neck and fur around the armholes by Riccardo Tisci for Givenchy. I love the simplicity of the line embellished with a little extravagance.

A P.R. woman came around and said that Daphne was arriving upstairs with Valerie Steele to speak and answer questions. I went upstairs just in time to see Valerie and Daphne crossing the building lobby to a microphone. Daphne was wearing a black tailored jacket and a white shirt with the white cuffs extended and the collar turned up. Around the collar was tied a burgundy velvet ribbon which trailed down her shoulder, and a pin decorated the ribbon. She had on black tights and the high black shoes with no heel; I think those are by Alexander McQueen. So the top was very romantic and the bottom was very modern.

The first question she got was "Who inspires you?" and without a beat she said, "Diana Vreeland." She spoke with a lovely English accent with a little bit of an Irish accent at the end of a sentence. She said that Diana Vreeland really "inhabited her clothes." Daphne's inspiration also comes from reading a lot by books, as she imagines what the heroine would be wearing. She said, to laughter, that her own sense of style was "a series of mistakes."

I raised my hand with others and Valerie Steele pointed and said, "White hair." That was me. I said, "Daphne, your grandmother was Diana Mitford and I wonder if you could talk about her and how she influenced you." "My grandmother had very strict style," she replied. "She was tall and had a vertical line. She was a writer and not very into fashion. My great-aunts Nancy and Debo went to the fashion shows and that is how I met Mr. Givenchy. But I am always happy to return to the simple, neat, vertical style of my grandmother." I thought her answer was so interesting because that is exactly what I had admired in her black Givenchy gown downstairs.

Someone asked her if she was inspired by contemporary artists and she said she was more inspired by the Old Masters like the seventeenth century Spanish painter Zuburán, who Carolyne Roehm had also named as a favorite artist. "I go back in time," said Daphne.

When asked to name what she was wearing, she stated that it was an "old McQueen jacket" and a white shirt and leggings which she makes. "I always wanted to wear men's suits," she said. "When the cut is right, it's a default position." She talked about the role of clothing. "You can use it as a defense. Growing up you know your group by the way you dress. I was the anti-Sloane Ranger. Instead of a little skirt and a little sweater, I had leather studded belts and leggings and was very grumpy so no one would come near me."

"My style used to be a protective tool and now it's not," she said to more laughter since now her style is a subject of great interest. "Chic is a kind of armor that protects you against the world."

A big reason she agreed to do the show was so that students at FIT and others could view the clothes and look at how they are made. "It was the right thing to do," she said, "so that people would be able to see this." Don't miss this show. It's an inspiration and I plan to return.

The Last Days of Alexander McQueen

Inside the Alexander McQueen exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (photo from The New York Times)

"I want to empower women. I want people to be afraid of the women I dress."
Alexander McQueen

On Friday I ran up to the Metropolitan Museum of Art at 8:30 a.m. to see the Costume Institute's blockbuster show Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty which closed on Sunday. Last year we went to the opening of the Costume Institute show where I had the chance to interview Anna Wintour, but this year because of scheduling I made it up just before the McQueen show closed.

As you probably know the Alexander McQueen show was sensationally popular and in the end it turned out to be one of the ten most visited exhibitions in the history of the museum. The extravagant production paid tribute to the gifted British designer who committed suicide last year at age 40, and everyone wanted to see it.

At 8:30 a.m. there were already lines going up Fifth Avenue of people waiting to get in to see the show. Fortunately I had a VIP pass so I was able to go directly into the exhibit on the second floor. The very first room of the show, which highlighted McQueen's gift for fine tailoring and featured exquisite jackets and trousers, was my favorite.

Then it was into more galleries of his fantastical designs made with glossy black feathers, funereal Victorian lace, blood red velvets and mad touches like little alligator heads used as epaulettes. The galleries were dark – with walls of black or smokey glass or cement block, and the audio effects included howling winds, growling wolves, creaking doors and monster noises. The environment was spooky which matched the Gothic sensibility of the imaginative designer.

" I oscillate between life and death, happiness and sadness, good and evil."
Alexander McQueen

The price I paid for waiting until the last days was that the galleries were very crowded but I did my best to see what I could including a small hologram from a McQueen fashion show which featured Kate Moss floating and spinning over the runway like an angel in a dreamy flowing gown of white organza with raw edges. By the end of the exhibit the visitor certainly did fully understand the momentous and singular talent of Mr. McQueen, and felt the sadness of his tragic loss.

I left the exhibit and passed the long waiting line strung through the second floor. When I went down the Grand Staircase I saw that the line circled around the second floor galleries of the Great Hall; all of the museum was one long line to get into the show! Outside on the sidewalk in the hot sun the line on Fifth Avenue circled back and forth, and this was at 11 a.m. I've been going to the Metropolitan Museum for thirty years and I've never seen anything like it.

Now, the show is gone, dismantled to make way for a new exhibition called Wonder of the Age: Master Painters of India, 1100-1900. But, with the magic of the internet, you can tour the McQueen show here with its curator Andrew Bolton:

A McQueen Moment

The timing was amazing. Last Friday Kate Middleton, destined to be the queen of England, married Prince William as three billion people watched around the world in a really beautiful dress designed by Sarah Burton for Alexander McQueen. Three days later on Monday night the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute previewed its new exhibition called "Savage Beauty," a retrospective of the work of McQueen. The name on everyone's mind now is the visionary English fashion genius who committed suicide last February at the age of forty.

Surely he would have loved to dress a future queen on her wedding day. I thought Kate Middleton got it all exactly right including her smallish bouquet composed of sweet William, for her husband, and sprigs from a myrtle planted by Queen Victoria in 1845.

(photos from Vogue.com)
The wedding dress had a lace bodice and sleeves, a full skirt, and a long train, and was worn with a sheer veil and a Cartier diamond tiara borrowed from Queen Elizabeth. It was an elegant '50s Grace Kelly look.

When she walked with her father up the aisle of Westminster Abbey (the construction of which began in 1245), it was quite breathtaking. Aren't we lucky to have tv cameras soaring about at these events?

Westminster Abbey

The New Yorker said that in England, royal weddings are a work of art. They really do know how to throw one.

Then on Monday in New York, the Met previewed its new Alexander McQueen show at the Costume Institute, there until July 31st. Due to time restraints, I was not able to attend the preview, as I did last year which we videoed. But the museum sent over some images of the McQueen galleries:
Gallery view – The Romantic Mind

Gallery view – The Romantic mind

Gallery view – Romantic Nationalism

The reviews of the show have been great, and I can't wait to go up and see it. Though I wonder if it will be a little sad, this retrospective of a life cut short by self-destruction. Certainly the world needs the fantastically imaginative creativity of Alexander McQueen. Right now, HBO is showing Lady Gaga's Monster Ball Tour special, which is pretty spectacular, and all of her many eccentric outfits are very McQueen-like – wouldn't that have been an astonishing partnership to watch.
I took this picture of a window at Bergdorf Goodman when McQueen died. It featured an angel floating in his white dress trimmed with a fringe of feathers.


He is greatly missed.